


Halfway Home

by aretia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Langst, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-18 22:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia
Summary: After the war is over, Lance returns home to his family on Earth, and reflects on how his bonds with his friends have grown as a paladin of Voltron. However, the fate of Voltron and the details of their final mission elude Lance’s memory. Shiro helps Lance remember how he made a sacrifice that changed the fate of the universe.





	Halfway Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the [Voltron Lance Flash Bang](http://voltronbigbang.tumblr.com/)! This bang was so much fun and my first introduction to bangs, so I hope I get to do more in the future :)
> 
> Art by Ashes [here!](http://ashessmashes.tumblr.com/post/174627757664)
> 
> Art by Nevermoree: [here!](https://nevermoree-the-raven.tumblr.com/post/174629866305/my-piece-for-the-voltronbigbang-for-the-fanfic)
> 
> Beta: [Revasnaslan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revasnaslan)

Lance bounded up the three porch steps to his house, bursting with excitement. The door had been left open to air out the house, although to Lance, the sweltering humidity of his hometown felt like mild weather.

“I’m home!” Lance called out as he strode through the door.

Only silence answered him. Dust swirled in beams of sunlight, landing on faded wallpaper and bare wooden floors. Maybe no one was home, but that seemed unusual to Lance, since his house was usually so crowded.

Unease settled in Lance’s chest as he made his way to his room. Each step felt familiar, yet foreign, the way his house felt when he walked through it in dreams.

When he entered his room, Lance felt a pang of nostalgia. On the wall above his bed was a photo of team Voltron, standing at the foot of the robot.

Calmness washed over Lance when his gaze drifted to Hunk, his best friend since the Garrison. Lance traced his fingers over the picture fondly. Hunk had been the one Lance could count on ever since they got launched into space, but over time Lance had gotten the rest of the group to warm up to him, and come to think of them as his second family.

Hunk was grinning with his arms wrapped around Pidge and Matt, the trio of geniuses whom Lance admired, even though he sometimes didn’t understand a word of what they were saying. Pidge used to be cold to Lance in school, but they had formed a bond once they were in space, both desperately missing their families. When Pidge found Matt, seeing their happy reunion kept Lance going, hoping that one day he would get to see his family again too.

Beside Matt, with his arms folded and a reserved smile on his face, stood Keith, Lance’s once bitter rival—the rivalry had really been one-sided, but Lance would never admit to that. He would also never admit that all along he had just been jealous of Keith and made up the rivalry to assuage his own insecurity. But in spite of that rough start, he and Keith had become close friends over the years, and he knew that being there for Keith had meant a lot to him.

Someone Lance would have least expected to see in a group of people he considered his allies—even less than Keith—was Emperor Lotor. Once he had allied with Voltron, he had worked together with them to make the Galra Empire a peaceful one and liberate most of the territories under Galra control. Allura had helped him resist the temptations of quintessence that had corrupted his parents, and maintain balance in his rule.

If Lance was being honest with himself, accepting Lotor as the leader of the Galra hadn’t been nearly as difficult as accepting him as a potential rival for Allura’s affection. But as Lance had grown out of his teenage crush on Allura, and into a friendship with her based on mutual trust and respect, that had gotten easier.

Standing in the middle of the group was Shiro. He looked quite different from the poster of him that Lance still had on his wall. For one thing, the scar, prosthetic arm, and white shock of hair aged him, undeniable reminders of what he’d been through. Aside from that, the Shiro who was his leader and close friend was nothing like the Shiro who had been a distant idol to Lance so long ago. The poster couldn’t capture the gleam of wonder in Shiro’s eyes, or the genuine smile that lifted his cheeks. That smile, held hostage since he was dragged into this war, had finally been returned to him, and Lance couldn’t be happier.

Lance wasn’t in the photo, since he was the one who took it. He had argued with Coran over who would take the picture, in fact, insisting that Coran be in it too, since he was like family to Lance just as much as the others. But his friends’ faces all smiling back at him sent a clear message that he belonged. He remembered yelling say cheese!, which had prompted a discussion with the Alteans about what cheese was. He remembered that, and yet he still couldn’t remember when he had taken the photo…

Everyone had signed the photo, saying how much they missed him. The war might be over, but that didn’t mean they would never see each other again. Aside from Allura, Lotor, and Coran, they were all back on Earth now and they could hang out whenever they wanted, regardless of some intergalactic war.

The doorbell rang. Lance rushed to the door, only to find that he had been crowded out by his family. So they were home. Why hadn’t they noticed him when he’d arrived?

Unheard over the clamor, Lance stood on his tiptoes and tried to peer around them. Standing in the doorway was Shiro. He was dressed in his black paladin armor, hanging his head and holding his helmet by his side.

“What happened to Lance?” begged his mother.

“You should be proud,” Shiro began, his voice faltering. “Lance sacrificed himself to protect peace in the universe.”

The memory hit Lance like an asteroid.

There was no need for a weapon like Voltron in a peaceful universe. After an alien leader had manipulated the paladins into obliterating an innocent Galra city, the team had decided to destroy Voltron. _“Voltron has become a symbol not of hope, but of fear,”_ Allura had said, before she had instructed Lance to get into the head of Voltron, alone, and fly into the rift.

They told him it would be safe.

_“Lance! Something’s wrong! You have to abort the mission!” Shiro’s voice came through the comms, muffled by the static of the rift._

_“I can’t!” Lance growled, his body straining against the immense forces pulling him into the glowing white light. It was too late to turn back._

_“Lance! Lance, answer me!”_

That was the last time Lance had heard Shiro’s voice, until now. Shiro’s usually steady voice cracked with a stifled sob.

“He never made it back from our last mission.”

Shiro’s shoulders shook, and he lifted his hand to wipe at his eye, though his head was still lowered so that no one could see his tears.

Lance’s mother, on the other hand, began to weep openly, throwing herself into the arms of his father. His little niece and nephew wailed for their fathers to hold them, which his brothers Marco and Luis did while wiping away tears themselves. His sister Veronica just ran down the hall to her room with her face buried in her hands.

 _“Guys, stop talking about me like I’m dead!”_ Lance cried out desperately. It was no more than a moment after the words left his mouth that he realized he wasn’t really speaking. He heard his voice in his mind, but his words froze in the empty air, not even disturbing the dust.

The mission wasn’t supposed to kill him. But Lotor had warned him about a risk far worse than death: he was trapped in the rift between realities. Half in this reality and half out, he was able to see and hear everything around him, but unable to interact with it.

Lance wove through the crowd and reached for Shiro. _“Shiro! You have to tell them I’m okay!”_ Lance pleaded.

Shiro’s head snapped up, as if he’d heard Lance. For a hopeful second, his steel gray eyes locked with Lance’s and there was a spark of recognition. But as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone, Shiro shaking his head like he thought he was going crazy.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Shiro said in customary parting, the words hollow. He clutched his helmet to his chest and turned around toward the garden path.

_“Shiro! Wait!”_

This time, Shiro gave no sign of having heard him. Maybe a slight shift of his shoulders, but then he climbed onto his speeder and was gone.

Lance chased him a few steps down the path before he fell to his knees, collapsing in the dirt. Rain began to fall as Lance sobbed. Lance imagined the rain kissing his skin, even as it passed through him and dampened the ground beneath his knees. His first time seeing rain again on Earth, and he didn’t even get to feel it.


End file.
